A Spanish Jesuit priest, Fr Benito Vies (1837-1893) was sent
to Havana, Cuba to monitor the Metereological Observatory in El Colegio Belen.
When he arrived, he was surprised by the loss of lives and property the people
had suffered as a result of frequent hurricanes that hit the island. He was
determined to do something to help the inhabitants of Cuba. So he would make
observations of the weather between 4 AM until 10 PM daily. He would write in
detail everything that happened on the hour, wind direction, cloud formation,
especially when a hurricane was approaching. As the years went by, he became an
expert in predicting hurricanes, and would warn the people to take shelter or
somehow protect themselves from the wind and rain. In 1875, he predicted a
major hurricane as people scrambled to take shelter or run away from the coast.
In the following years he would give information about upcoming storms and
hurricanes, so much so that the people would call him the ‘Hurricane priest.’
Fr Vies has become known as
the founder of tropical meteorology,
creating in the process a network of weather stations along the entire
Caribbean Sea.
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